Aegis

Copper alloy aegis with the head of Isis wearing a tripartite wig with a crown of cobras with uraeus. The semi-circular gorget plate (or shield) is bent out of shape and broken away at the right side. The head is hollow cast with surviving inlay in the right eye. In the late 1910s Professor Percy Newberry described the piece as of “fair” technique and made this note on the preservation: “arm and emblems of head lost; eyes and rim of one eye also lost; upper edges of collar broken; whole object bent”. This type of object would have been attached to the prow of a sacred boat (barque). Curator of the Mayer Collection, Charles Gatty noted on the catalogue slip in about 1870 "The eyebrows and eyes have been enammelled with blue glass". The object was not evacuated out of the museum during the Second World War and somehow passed into the collection of Major Dixon Nuttall who returned it to the museum in 1961 (was given a temporary number of 1961.202.177). The curator at the time (Dr Dorothy Downes) noted on the record card: "Ex Mayer Coll. war time looting, passed into coll of Major Dixon Nuttall; given to Museum by him".